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Red Mile Failing, Hereos Over Europe Release Doubtful?

If you've been looking forward to Sin City and Heroes Over Europe, you may not want to hold your breath. It appears that publisher Red Mile is in dire straits, which would mean that both projects would either keel right over, or the developers in question would need to find a new publisher (which of course, would take additional time).

According to this discouraging report, Red Mile is running on fumes. They were in a decent position last year, when they signed a co-publishing deal with Atari to produce Heroes Over Europe, but Atari has now withdrawn the agreement. This means that checks from Atari have stopped arriving at Red Mile HQ, which in turn means they can't pay developer Transmission Games, which has already walked away...Red Mile owes them $281,000. In order to clean up the mess and keep their doors open for business, they may go after Atari for "compensatory damages," but the cash flow may halt entirely before that move comes to fruition. Apparently, Red Mile has about $341,000 left, which will only get them through March; after that, the company says they need about $10 million to keep going through the next 2-3 years. Red Mile's total losses have exceeded $35 million since they first started out in 2004, which means securing additional money via bank loans may not be possible, especially in this difficult economy. Therefore, Red Mile may be facing the end of the road, leaving a couple interesting projects up in the air.

Perhaps Atari will stand up and decide to take on both Sin City and Heroes Over Europe, but as they've already declined partial publishing rights to the latter, it seems unlikely. Well, who else might want 'em? EA, you out there?